How To Rescue Things

Bill Orcutt’s How to Rescue Things is a seven-track solo-guitar album released through Palilalia in December 2024, with a CD edition following in September 2026. Recorded in his San Francisco living room, it places his four-string electric guitar over loops of strings, harp, and choral voices taken from an RCA easy-listening record. Its defining quality is reclamation: rather than using those lush arrangements merely as a joke or nostalgic backdrop, Orcutt turns their sentimental melodies into foundations for searching improvisations. The prerecorded accompaniment supplies the harmonic framework, freeing his guitar to move between tender melodic phrases, jagged runs, and insistent repetitions without having to establish the underlying tune itself.

“Not Reconciled” brings that tension into focus through its crooned “Oh my god,” closing “amen,” and guitar playing that balances romantic warmth with angular phrasing. On “Old Hamlet,” Orcutt builds toward a wail above plucked harp before retreating into quieter, repeated notes that blend with the accompaniment. “Requiem in Dust” pushes harder against its orchestral setting, using sharply picked figures and prolonged repetition, while closing track “The Wild Psalms” carries the contrast toward a noisy culmination over sweeping strings. The result is neither a straightforward orchestral crossover nor a demolition of easy listening: Orcutt preserves the emotional pull of the borrowed recordings while exposing unexpected friction and beauty inside them.